Good q. The trouble with mostly WFH myself is that it is hard for me to gauge how common it is. You're mostly on conference calls one way or another, so no idea if people are in the office or not. Based on the amount of people/pets I hear, it is increasingly common. That is also true when I'm negotiating with attorneys at other companies.

I will say that it is becoming more and more common. We're also about to go open office, so a bunch of people that weren't WFH most days are about to be.

Same with my co. My old boss HATED it. My new boss is 100% fine with it.

LOL, we seriously might, though I know several bros at other megacorps going through this now too. With the groups that already have gone whenever they're on conference calls they sound like they're in an airport with all the background noise. WFH has obviously sky-rocketed and THANK GOD for that because otherwise they have to repeat everything they say 2-3x.

I can't even begin to imagine how lawyers are supposed to function like that, and I'm not even going to bring up issues with investigations under A-C priv.

lol. Friend works in M&A and is at an open floor plan. He's always on calls and random people just walk past him or can eavesdrop on his convo because the printer is near him. No privacy at all. He has a lil locker to store stuff, but has just decided not to take anything personal to work after some random dude just plopped in his chair trying to log in. Dude was looking for a hotel desk (an open trading desk that isn't assigned to anyone, so it's generally first come, first serve) and picked the wrong one. Not like the fucking bobble head or family portrait would have indicated otherwise. I guess enough commotion was made that they've inserted a glass partition to restrict access. Now, lol, he and the other attys look like hamsters in a glass cage.

Yeah, we're getting the lockers too. As if working with zero privacy isn't bad enough, having no space of your own so you have to set up anything you need in the AM and put it all away in the PM, wasting even more time, is just another reason to skip it and WFH.

I don't think you work where I work though, the M&A lawyers haven't moved to open floor plan yet.

It's atrocious in many ways. Sure, you get to chat with your colleagues more often, but it'll only frustrate attorneys as they try to perform their routine tasks like reading complex documents or are participating on a conference calls. Apparently, the company will be giving noise cancelling headphones or installing some white noise contraption. Seating charts have been circulating and apparently very senior attys are fighting to get coveted trading desks where the windows are to their backs. best of luck if you're near the shitter. Apparently, Anheuser Busch has done it, and a few financial institutions have done it or are starting the process.

Our employment legal team is at trading desks now, and they got screwed over by another team. so, they're near the lunch/lounge area (not the official cafeteria, but the place where you can get coffee, water, something from a vending machine, etc.) and someone from some other group (like compliance or IT) makes their shake there every morning. So, you hear at like 8:30 am, every day, someone just using the blender at full blast. That's also where people will do birthday celebrations and such. So, it's not unusual to hear people screaming or singing happy birthday in the background.

Or groups of people walking by for presos, all talking loudly. Or visitors that have come to meet someone. But even without all that, you have a bunch of people taking conference calls at the same time and that alone is enough to ensure there's a ton of background noise on every freakin' call and that anyone not on a call is always distracted.

Oh yea, he's next to some other legal group that has the tendency of shouting to each other. lol. Someone in another group goes ballistic on one of the shouting attorneys. Full on meltdown. Not sure what happened to the guy, but he was gone for like 4 weeks and is back now with a new seat location. I guess HR prbly got involved.

JFC, I can imagine that is going to happen a lot. I know several people with short fuses and it will be a wonderful combo (though, IRL, everyone I know is moving to WFH).

Oh, I forgot to mention that where I work there was a parking shortage even before this. And now that they're cramming in more people - you guessed it, parking becomes a whole event. So coming into the office means trying to find parking, failing, parking in a remote lot, taking bus, coming to your open office, getting your stuff setup, finally getting to work. Lunch of course is a super crowded cafeteria, smelling everyone's food around your desk (oh great! some guy likes fermented kidneys brought from home!) then giving up and staring at your screen blankly, then tearing everything down before waiting in a long line to board the bus, another line to even get out of the remote lot and finally you're home. I imagine by this point you're in full depression.

Seriously, I don't think I would accept a 30% salary increase to do that every day instead of WFH.

I can take vacation any time I want! I just have to make sure to still get my work done. I recently "took" a vacation day, still worked, just because I'm at my accrual max so the day would be wasted otherwise. :-|

Good q. I've never brought this up so not sure. But I can leave for a few weeks and work from wherever without any problems as long as I don't have a scheduled meeting. My wife is planning on flying to the west coast for work and I'm going to fly with her for at least some of the time. The main impediment to how much I can do that is finding someone to watch the pets, not my work.

Yep, always shower (if I have a really early morning call I take it and then shower though). Often don't shave, but sometimes show up to the office with stubble too. I have a really good Breville espresso machine. I have a large room that is my office area.

My office is at a corp HQ. So unless I'm driving to the nearby town I'm limited to "the office." I drive anyway, no train. If I wanted to do that, I live in a fairly urban area so I see more normal life walking my dog over lunch anyway.

I WFH like 80% of the time and I go to a coffee shop if I feel like interacting with people or need to just people watch during working hours. Summer was the best bc u had a lot of tight lil spinner tourist chicks walking into the coffee shops. I imagine OP does that too.